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Irish Heritage Fest a real winner

The first-ever Adams Corner Irish Heritage Festival, staged on the Sunday of the Columbus Day weekend, was a triumph on every count.

As a community-building neighborhood event, and as evidence of a strong and vibrant community of residents who are proud of their neighborhood, the festival was a success on just about every level.
We prominently displayed a front page photo of the event by our own Harry Brett on the front page of last weekâ€™s edition, and it showed the streets around Adams Street and Gallivan Boulevard crowded with scores of happy folks.

There are many remarkable elements to this triumphal event: First, it was conceived, developed, and executed solely by a team of volunteers, folks with ties to the neighborhood, either directly as residents or as members of the business community that serves them; secondly, there was no charge for attending â€“ all the music, dancing, and other events were free for the asking; and third, many people stepped up to help defray the expenses. Large donations came from Gerardâ€™s Adams Corner and Greenhills Bakery, but several dozen other merchants made significant donations of money and/or the time and talent of their employees. (The Reporter newspapers published several advance stories, and donated advertising space with a value of several thousand dollars.) In a next-day story Oct. 12, The Boston Globe called it â€œa grand day for wearing the green in Dorchester.â€

The committee was co-chaired by Sean Weir, president of the Cedar Grove civic group, and John Oâ€™Toole, a past president. Any profits from the event will benefit of St. Brendanâ€™s Parish.

In an e-mailed statement to his committee members last week, an elated Weir said, â€œThank you all for your help on putting on a great day; it was a pleasure working with all of you. From our elected officials to all the businesses in the neighborhood and outside the neighborhood, we could not have pulled this off without you. Thank you all again. And a special thanks to our committee members. I cannot say it enough.â€

It truly was an excellent day for Dorchester. The unofficial estimates of the crowd reached as high as 6,000 attendees over the course of the 11-hour event that went on from 9 in the morning until 8 at night. There was nary a problem: police report no arrests and no problems with the orderly crowd.

Even at nightâ€™s end, when the U2 cover band â€œJoshua Treeâ€ played the last note, the crowd gathered to help clean up the streets, and within two hours, all was back to normal. One of the organizers, tired but exhilarated, said he was back at home with his feet up, relaxing in an easy chair by ten oâ€™clock that night.

Yes, it was a triumphant night for Dorchester. Letâ€™s look ahead to a repeat next year!